Lighting the Way Knowledge Assessment in Prince Edward Island (1999) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Knowledge System
3 The Knowledge System
Pages 11-26
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From page 11... ...
CLIMATE FOR THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY Cultural and Political Climate As a place to live and a place to work, Prince Edward Island has clear and undeniable advantages. Its physical beauty is striking, and this is attested to by the thriving tourist industry and the vacation retreats of numerous wealthy and 1 7
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From page 12... ...
Islanders see themselves as a race of entrepreneurs. As is true of farmers and fishers everywhere, risk is part of their lives, but they claim to face it with their own brand of common sense (and with comfortable awareness of the Canadian Government' s generous social safety net)
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From page 13... ...
PEI workers tend to be loyal to their companies, and dedicated to re iThis is an outdated impression, although still valid for total public spending. In April 1998, subsequent to the focus groups, the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council released its study of PEI, Linked for Good, which indicated sharp decreases in PEI's dependency on federal and government spending.
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From page 14... ...
A good example is the recently completed Confederation Bridge. This new fixed link to the mainland appeared to break many cultural icons as well as raising environmental concerns, and was fiercely opposed by a vocal minority of Islanders, but a majority of the general population accepted this potentially radical change with little resistance, if not enthusiasm.
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From page 15... ...
People need to be better aware of the achievements already in place, such as the broadband network. The important initiatives associated with the Knowledge Economy Partnership have not been widely reported, although a symposium related to the Knowledge Assessment received a full page of coverage in one of the local pa pers.
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From page 16... ...
The focus groups felt that in past years government intervention has been biased toward heavy industry sectors, like aerospace and agricultural processing. Current provincial government policy seems to favor smaller business, and information technology is now receiving more attention.
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From page 17... ...
For new industry, however, the government frequently offers tax holidays, and there are no provincial payroll taxes in PEI. THE KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE BASE The creation of new knowledge is an important element of science and engineering and is usually measured by the output of original discoveries or inventions.
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From page 18... ...
Much of the research going on at the University of Prince Edward Island is carried out at the Atlantic Veterinary College. The only other major post-secondary school is Holland College, a community college with training and adult education programs.
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From page 19... ...
There is also a federal livestock and plant pathology laboratory, the Center for Animal and Plant Health, in Charlottetown. The Center has a P-3 level containment facility, with special facilities for handling and testing sensitive materials.
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From page 20... ...
Access and Dissemination Prince Edward Island has full Internet connectivity and good links to the Canadian information system, so access to knowledge itself is not a problem. The greater issue is the link between information provider and user, a role traditionally played by extension agents, technological information and technical assistance services, and consultant firms.
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From page 21... ...
Some of the focus group concerns included inflated grades, high school graduates who can not write a business letter, dropout rates of twentyfive per cent for males and fifteen per cent for females, the integration of special need students, out of date texts, and the quality of teaching. Neither the schools nor the universities are producing the number and quality of technical workers that are needed for the knowledge economy, and many technology related jobs are going unfilled.
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From page 22... ...
But Holland College's "competency-based education" approach emphasizes active industry participation in program development, and the College may be suffering more from a problem of marketing outreach to its prospective clients than from lack of capability. Some felt it was a problem in itself that less than ten per cent of the faculty of the university are Islanders.
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From page 23... ...
Both have established centers on campus to help professors prepare material for distance delivery. Participants disagreed whether it was desirable to partner with an institution, like the University of Moncton, that already has an established distance education program and is able to provide a superior product in PEI.
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From page 24... ...
Industry Canada, in partnership with the PEI government, has installed thirty Community Access Program (CAP) sites on the Island to provide public access to the Internet, supplementing the connection to all the schools and public libraries across the province.3 The local CAP site served as a base in Wellington on which training and for-profit production of computer and Internet-related software products were added.
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From page 25... ...
Venture capitalists favor firms at least two years old, and prefer larger investments for the same reason that banks do in order to keep their administrative costs low. There are government agencies, such as Enterprise PEI and the Federal Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA)
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From page 26... ...
The knowledge economy must not be associated with unattractive jobs like call centers, but be seen as adding value to tacit and embodied knowledge. Lifelong learning must become ingrained, and the communities must become "telecommunities" in the learning society.
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